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Thanks. Panda moors or Panda butterflys are my new favorite fish. They are a new variety. I hope to raise some someday but they are hard to come by online.

I haven't heard of them before. I'm going to check it out definetely!

11-25-2012 02:27 AM

Gold Finger

Thanks. Panda moors or Panda butterflys are my new favorite fish. They are a new variety. I hope to raise some someday but they are hard to come by online.

11-25-2012 01:37 AM

Amandas tank

This has been an interesting progressive thread from start to finish.

Your Moores are soooo cute! Black Morres have always been my favorite in the goldfish species. I used to have a gravel bottom tank, planted just for our goldfish. They were great fish and didn't eat the plants. They did however kick them out from under the stones I used to anchor them weekly. I had Anubias varieties, crypts and Lemon Swords in the tank with them...oh and some Water Wisteria which they snacked on. The plant put up a good fight, but eventually, the goldfish won.

Anyway! Great Thread!

10-17-2012 02:09 AM

Gold Finger

The End

Well, it has been a fun and informative endeavor but my dirt tank is no more. The sand cap on these dirt setups cannot be vacuumed all the way down to the mud. Normally that is fine; the detritus ends up being eaten by the plants. The problem was that I had goldfish in there and the waste production was just too much for the system. The technique is great but won't work with too high of a bio load i.e. goldfish. Messy buggers. It isn't a total surprise. I fought the poop all the way.

Its back to bare bottom for me. We will see how rooting plants do without a substrate. Fine, I imagine.

09-23-2012 06:14 AM

Gold Finger

I may be having trouble with Nitrate too. I think I may have too little, which was partly to blame for a Cyanobacteria outbreak I recently had. I may have to consider dosing it, but right now I'm looking further into using fish food alone as a complete nutrient source. I hope I can just more. Lord knows the moor will eat everything I throw in there. He's around six inches now. I credit the low Nitrate for what I think is pretty good growth. I was hoping to get him over 10" someday, but I have come to think that kind of size may only be possible in green water ponds.

09-23-2012 05:07 AM

xjasminex

The tank is looking good!
Im still having troubles with nitrates, but im always trying to fix those!
Your moor is looking huge too!!

09-23-2012 03:24 AM

Gold Finger

Update Sept22/2012

Have Moved the tank to my new apartment ( I snuck it in at 3am).

I had to separate and remove the layered substrate and had to top off the cap, so I used plain ol' sand which was all I had on hand.

There are some new plants and I have upped the light to 3-4 shoplight bulbs. I am adding excell. I had some BGA and wonder if the substrate caused it when some dirt got released during planting???
I'm off to europe for a week.

07-07-2012 05:19 AM

Gold Finger

Anyone reading this thread to learn about low maintainance/water quality issues should note that this tank has ZERO nitrates after months of no WCs. I strongly believe that it is due to the soil base. The plants may well have been able to achieve this without the soil but my experience (quite limited) is that they don't tend to get it all all the time without soil. The anaerobic soil allows them to easily convert the nitrate back (with the help of some anaerobes) to a nitrogen form they can easily consume.

If there has been an issue (and I think there has) it is dissolved organic solids. In the future I will do water changes or, if I wanted to avoid the WCs, experiment with seachem's Purigen, which claims to deal with this issue.

I will stick with the soil base because it is a simple and effective, automatic, low maintenance, denitrification system. I am glad I tried this before one of those complex denitrifiers you read about people fussing with forever. This is a way better way to go.

This was an experiment and my tank won't stay like this. I quite enjoy some elements and will retain them while advancing the aesthetic value of the tank in the future. It is, likely to retire from the experimental arena and become a display tank.

07-04-2012 01:37 AM

aweeby

interesting thread. I'm planning to do something similar when I upgrade my sister's goldie tank, but sans stems. goldies, love them or not, are just little bulldozers. cute ones, but still.

07-03-2012 05:52 AM

xjasminex

Go for it!
It's looking good for you!
I personally like the jungle look though!
Good luck!

07-03-2012 05:36 AM

Gold Finger

The move to my new apartment may well trigger a new stage for this tank. I would like to get the upper hand on the algae, perhaps by upping the light over 1 WPG, and maybe even scape the tank a little. Perhaps even experiment with some "real" plants (stems are all I have had to date).

06-28-2012 02:50 AM

Gold Finger

Update

Well its been ??? months since my last post so I guess Its time for an update...

The tank is super stable. No WCs, no vacuuming and absolutely no filter cleanings. All I have done is top off evaporation and pull plants when they get overgrown. I don't even have to feed the fish if I don't want to, they do fine on plants, algae and baby snails. So I guess its a success.

I never got on top of algae. Its still beyond me

Ambulia gets munched a bit sometimes. Hornwort and vals never.

Am moving into an apartment next week. I am guessing they don't allow tanks. Will sneak it in at night

02-22-2012 06:15 PM

Gold Finger

Ambulia has to go

Well... The hornwort is a real star in an ultra low light setup. It grows like a weed, especially if it gets long light hours. Those long hours promote excessive diatom growth, though. The Diatom has never died off in this tank. I think the dirt bottom is providing an endless source of silicate. I may scrap the dirt.
The ambulia grows so densely it makes cleaning the bottom too difficult. It won't do for a gold tank. I'll be moving in a month or two, so the tank will be torn down and the experiment will be over. The growth has nearly kept up with the nitrate production after two months without a water change, but the bottom has proved too hard to clean. The FBS is too hard to vacuum properly, too. The next time I set this tank up it will probably be with a simple, inert cleanable substrate and stems which don't need to root. Hornwort, and I don't know what else... Perhaps the "wort" alone could keep up with the nitrates in a plain gravel (or inert sand like PFS) setup. Neither the dirt, nor the rooted plants work well in trying to achieve a zero nitrate creep, no WC tank with golds... IME.

02-01-2012 11:04 PM

xjasminex

Hey goldfinger!
Whats the word on this tank?

01-27-2012 05:02 AM

xjasminex

I think i get diatomes, i noticed if i have my second bulb on i grow them in a few days time, so i only have the second bulb on for a few hours every other day or so....

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